Facebook Advertising Changes (January 2018 Update)

Facebook Advertising Changes – January 2018

It’s 2018, and we’re anticipating that all sorts of Facebook ad changes are on the horizon. So far, the social media giant has been quiet to start off the new year, but some important information did come out in a personal post shared by CEO Mark Zuckerburg.

In his post, Mark shared his concerns with Facebook and the things that he hopes to address with it in the new year.

The issues he mentioned fixing won’t come as a surprise for many –

Interference with Political Elections

Preventing Hateful Content from Being Distributed

Ensuring Time on Facebook is “Well Spent”

At a glance, none of these issues seems to be relevant to advertisers, and perhaps they aren’t. However, keep in mind that when Facebook makes a change to address one issue, the results can be much farther reaching.

For instance, consider what Zuckerburg could mean when he says that he wants to ensure time on Facebook is well-spent. Could that mean something about a coming change to the content users see on their timelines?

Most likely.

It’s too early to speculate about specifics, but here’s our opinion:

Marketers should be ready for some major shakeups on Facebook as we head into 2018.

Facebook Advertising Changes for December 2017

Facebook is a platform that’s constantly changing. Advertisers on the platform do well to keep up so that their practices don’t become outdated or ineffective. As of this December, there’s yet another important update to keep track of – read on for more information.

The Latest – December 4th, 2017 Facebook Advertising Update

Facebook’s been under the gun, as of late, for some of the ad targeting options they allow on their platform. A couple of days ago, Facebook hastily removed an option to target based on ethnicity (race).

This option was removed because Facebook recently discovered that advertisers were making use of it in an unlawful way.

The Federal Housing Administration has strict rules about how housing can be advertised, and they don’t allow for “discriminatory practices” in this area. However, despite Facebook’s best efforts, advertisers have continually found loopholes that allow them to use the targeting options that should be outlawed for advertisements related to finding housing options.

Believe it or not, this is not the first time Facebook has dealt with this exact problem. For some reason, they have had a difficult time controlling how people advertise in sectors that are legally bound by anti-discriminatory regulations.

In response to the issues they’re having, Facebook made the decision to remove these targeting options altogether.

There’s potential for massive impact here – at least in some industries. There are plenty of companies that never touch ethnicity when setting up marketing strategies, but for others, the method may be central to a marketing strategy.

Where does that leave those in industries like these?

Only time will tell. We’ll keep you posted on the latest from Facebook as it comes, both this month and into 2018.

November 8th, 2017 Facebook Advertising Update

The latest new option that’s been brought to Facebook advertising campaigns is a new way to organize campaign budget spend. Previously, Facebook required users to either enter into the Facebook bidding system or set ad budgets based on ad sets. Now, however, there’s a way to optimize spending at a campaign-level.

This means that users will have the ability to set a budget (say, $1,000) for their entire campaign and have Facebook automatically optimize the spending based on the ads that perform best.

If you’ve read anything on the FeedbackWrench blog that relates to Facebook advertising, you’ll know that we’re pretty skeptical about the idea of having Facebook regulating all of your advertising spending. We don’t necessarily recommend choosing a simple “boost” over bidding on advertising slots.

However, in this case, there are some interesting results that could come to your advertising efforts as a result of optimizing at a campaign level. In a way, choosing to optimize for campaign level spending is like siding with the Facebook algorithm in a way that encourages an increased amount of conversions.

Why?

Because Facebook will work to select the most effective of your ad sets in such a way that spending will be targeted towards conversions rather than random reach. It will be interesting to see what this development means for advertisers on Facebook.

August – September 2017 Update

Facebook is Limiting the Post Types that can be Boosted

As of today, August 26th, 2017, we’ve learned of some new changes that are coming to Facebook advertising. In our opinion, these changes are likely to be for the better and will not ultimately have a big effect on brands that are hoping to see some returns from advertising with the social media giant. Here’s what you can expect come September.

Post Types that Pages Can No Longer Boost

If you’ve ever strategically boosted some of the more uncommon types of status updates that pages can make on Facebook, you may soon find that your go-to boosts are being eliminated. For instance, while pages can currently boost updates like “feelings or activities” in addition to updates like “life events” these options will soon be disappearing. While pages will still be able to post these updates as they normally would, the option to promote them will soon be disappearing as well. In addition to the removal of boosts like these, pages will also find that many “shared” posts will lose their eligibility for boosting. For a full list of the posts that will be removed from boosting options, you can refer to this article by Social Media Today.

How Will This Affect Small Business Advertisers?

All things considered, we’re expecting this update to have very little impact in the grand scheme of things. While some small businesses and other advertisers may have found a way to use these kinds of updates for strategic marketing, most businesses did not utilize these options often anyway. While some small businesses and other advertisers may have found a way to use these kinds of updates for strategic marketing, most businesses did not utilize these options often anyway. As a result of this change, we’re actually hoping that pages will see some slight benefits algorithmically. While advertisers typically struggle to get posts seen, we’re expecting that eliminating unusual and irrelevant advertisements will allow for businesses to score a higher overall relevancy score, which in turn will lead to higher post reach. Speaking of post reach, if you’re looking for more ways to raise it, check out our theory about “Why Weird Wins Online“. In essence, this move by Facebook could almost be seen as a gift to small businesses that may have otherwise wasted their advertising dollars. If Facebook is removing these options, it can be assumed that their algorithm did not find these posts to be relevant or useful for the end user.

Conclusion

If “Keeping Up With Facebook” doesn’t sound like something you’re interested in, try giving us a call! We’d love to talk about how we activate digital marketing strategies for small businesses and ministries. We’ll buy you coffee and talk over a free no-hassle consultation and discuss whether our services could be fitting for your small business.